The dough was weak, given all the seeds, but was never crumbly. The fermentation was fast, and should be watched closely.

The Crust was soft, and the crumb was smooth. A sour flavor was very much present, but not dominant. It tastes, and feels closer to a volkornbrot (though much lighter), than a regular whole wheat. It is not dense at all.

This bread is rather a sourdough than what Peter Rh. intended it to be, it is nicely sour-ish, and i think i have used a bit too much SD starter, it is bound to become assertively sour in a few days.

With 50% preferment, a wild yeast starter is not the choice, if someone hates sour notes in a bread.

You always get such a great gluten development and nowhere is it more important and obvious than in this loaf. That is the key to success for a heavily grained loaf. Great crumb and rise for a multigrain!

I make a similar loaf and what I learned from developing that recipe is that the gluten development is paramount to the success of this loaf. If it is not done, the loaf is very crumbly and probably dense and moist. That dough is also very sticky due to the different mashed, starchy grains (rye,oats etc) and it taught me the difference between sticky dough and wet dough. Another step on the learning curve.

I use my natural levain for the biga in my recipe and I have found that with whole wheat, you really need to watch it's development carefully. It seems to develop much faster than an all AP flour preferment and go very quickly to overripe. I wonder if a little salt in the biga would tame the sourness as well as reduce the fast development? Something on my list to try.

I totally agree. It is a messy job mixing the dough during the initial stage, though.

A WW preferment ferments really fast like you said, even more so when the flour is freshly milled ,as in this case. Contrary to you, i'm not fond of fermented sour foods, Including bread. I lie in the sweeter side of the food spectrum, and i like to have my starter produce lactic acid more than acetic.

is just the kind of bread we like. Dark crust, nice open crumb, plenty of goodies for the soaker add in,slices great and perfect for sandwiches. It just doesn't get much better. Instead if instant yeast, I'm guessing this bread would be a perfect candidate to replace it with YW. I'm thinking it would be a little less sour too for those that want to minimize it.

Yeast water will only extended the final proof, which is detrimental to the dough structure. The preferment account for more than half of the total dough mass, and a short final proof is necessary to avoid dough breakdown. I don't have a yeast water, yet. I have enough trouble tending my two starters as it is: Liquid White, and liquid Rye.

As to the sourness, you know what? I really have awfully misjudged this bread, it is absolutely wonderful and is pleasently sour. Toasted, this bread was a killer grilled cheddar cheese sandwich.

Another great adaptation from WGB, Khalid! Great to see the photos of each stage. The crumb is just perfect, though I must admit that I am still an even bigger fan of your crusty, hearth loaves. And, be careful when replacing those yeasted bigas with sourdough, you may just turn into a sour bread lover yet :)

I love my hearth bread too, Marcus, but sometimes a dough is just too frail and weak, that panning it would best preserve it's shape.

I cut into this bread 1.5 hours later (wanted my wife to sample it). The bread was slighly warm still at the time, and sour flavor was very much there. Such heavily seeded bread is best sliced after 12-24 hours.

The bread is now history! We loved it, especially toasted with some butter!

As you know, the Preferment , and the soaker have all added up to the strength of the final dough , and a brief intensive mixing was all it took to arrive at afairly strong dough. It is Peter Reinhart's epoxy method, not really my achievement.

One of the reasons that I don't make the BBA version of Struan is that it is so sweet! I really don't care for that much sugar in a multi-grain type of bread. So, using sourdough might take some of the edge off all of that sweetness.

I guess our tastebuds have differing opinions about whether sour bread is enjoyable. One thing I won't argue with you is that whole wheat sourdoughs can go intensely sour; too much so for my liking.

I don't like much sweetness either, but cutting into this bread after 1.5 hous while the bread's flavor is slowly maturing was wrong decision. The bread, as you said, will perform very well with a sourdough biga, and it did. Toasted, the bread was a piece of heaven. Crunchy, nutty, and barely sour.

I have enjoyed reading about your changes with this recipe of PRs. Keeping a dough 'sweet' using freshly milled whole grains can be a challenge....

A very solid shaped loaf! It has nice color and the crumb is soooo open for all the grains and seeds you included. I have never attempted to shape a 1kg panned loaf! That in itself is an accomplishment! It came out nice and uniformly shaped.

Yes, fresh flours do ferment faster, and sour faster too. I owe my successful Pan shaping to Laurel book's instructions on shaping a sandwich loaf. I follow her instructions to the word. I may creat a new illustration for shaping a sandwich loaf ,and post it here.

I love your illustrations that you have posted in the past and would love to see another one.

I still struggle on which shaping method I prefer when doing panned loaves. I use Laurel's or txfarmer's one piece or the 3 piece that she does also. Sometimes I do JMonkeys....so I am still experimenting so haven't focused yet on one specific one for all of my panned loaves. Hard to pick one when I use different doughs and the crumbs are different due to ingredients....

I am glad to read that this loaf didn't end up being too sour for your tastes. It is a great bread and so fun to mix and match all the add ins.

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